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BALTIMORE, MD. 



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BY 



LANCASTER, PA. 



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^ DECORATION DAY, 

j:^V;: At Loudon Park Cemetery, 

yi^£>I/? BALTIMORE, MD. ^^a 



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PUBLISHED BY WILSON POST MUSICAL IISSOCIIITION. 



BALTIMORE : 

PRESS OF THOMAS & EVANS, 

No. 7 6". Holliday Street, 




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LANCASTER, PA. 

— ON — 



DECORATION DAY, 

— AT — 

LOUDON PARK CEMETERY, 



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BALTIMORE, MB., 



HALTIMORE: 

PUBLISHED BY WILSBN POST MUSICAL flSSOCIflTION, 



DJ^COfi-Al^lOX My, Y M®Y 3l,^t, 1880. 



GRAND MARCH, . - 
MINUTE GUNS. 

— AT THE GRAVES. — 

1. Selection from Nobucco, 

2. Duett. — Maritana, 

3. Do You Remember, 

4. Gently Rest Thee Mother. 

— AT the stand. — 

Flower Song — Opcrf/, 

Openin(; Prayer, - - - Chaplain 

Hymn — Air: Arlington, 

Opening Address, - - Col, 

RoMAXZA — Opcrti, 

Poem — Th(^ Old Sarq;canf, 

Fountain of Grace, 

Oration, ----- 

When Quiet Moon is Beaming, 

Song — Passing Away, 

Prayer, . . . . 

Good Night, Beloved, - 



2d Artillery Band. 
Battery A, U. S. A. 

Verdi. 

Wallace. 

Cainpani. 



Band. 

E. K. Miller, G. A. R. 

Union Harmonists. 

T. F. Lang, G. A. R. 

BAxNd. 

Miss Minnie Mosher. 

- Band. 

Hon. M. Brosius. 

Band. 

Union Harmonists. 

Chaplain J. B. Shontz. 

Band. 



Baltimore, March 30th, 18S0. 

COL. T. F. LANG, No. 7/ North Charles Street, 
Dear Sir and Comrade: — We, the undersigned members of 

Committee on " Orators and Ministers " for " Decoration Day 

Ceremonies," most respectfully ask that you deliver the Address on 

that occasion. 

Recognizing your ability as a speaker and knowing the service 

you have done our Order, and still exhibiting in behalf of the Grand 

Army of the Republic, we take pleasure in soliciting your services 

on that day. 

Hoping for an early and fa\orable answer, we are comrade, 
Most respectfully yours in F. C. & L., 

J. W. C. Cuddy, Chairman, Wilson Post. 
J. B. Shontz, " " 

Lewis Henninghausen. " " 

Chas. R. Coleman, Harry Howard " 
J. W. Worth. Diishane Post. 



No. 71 North Charles Street, 

Baltimore, April 13, 1880. 
Dr. y. 11: (\ Cuddy, Rev. J. B. Shontz, 

Col. LciVis Henninghausen, Capt. Chas. R. Coleman, 

Capt. y. IV. Worth, Committee. 
Dear Comrades : 

I am in receipt of your polite and very kind letter of the 30th ult., 
requesting me to deliver the Address upon the occasion of our 
"Memorial Day" ceremonies on the 31st inst., at Loudon Park. 
I thank you, indeed, for this evidence of kind wishes, and for the 
\ery complimentary words in which you have been pleased to address 
me. It would have been better, perhaps, had you entrusted this 
duty to abler hands, but as I am at all times ready to lend a hand to 
anything that indicates the advancement and prosperity of our noble 
Order, I shall accept your invitation — trusting to say nothing on 
that day that will give you cause to regret the confidence reposed. 
Very sincerely yours, in F. C. «& L., 

T. V. Lang. 




ADDRESS OF COL. T. F. LANG. 




Ladies and Gentlemen and Comrades : — 

The institution of " Memorial Day " as a means of keeping fresh 
the memory of the brave men who gave their lives that the Union 
might not perish, was a happy thought. The debt of gratitude owed 
to them could never be paid, and therefore it was well that it should 
be gratefully and reverently remembered, and the Nation's undying- 
obligation be annually acknowledged by the graceful tribute of a 
decoration of their honorable graves. 

The observance has grown, in some of the States, into a public and 
legal holiday, and the demonstrations of patriotic remembrance have 
rather grown than diminished with the lapse of years. In other 
states, though a change has been wrought in the meaning and spirit 
of "Memorial Day," by the spread of that insidious sentimentalism 
which has been industriously disseminated by those to whom the 
observance was an offence and a reproach ; and while multitudes yet 
participate in the annual celebration with the same patriotic fervor 
that at the first burned with its great sense of the real nature of the 
infinite sacrifice by which the Union was saved, and draw from the 
grave of dead Loyalty the same inspiration of lofty devotion to 
country and flag, many have been gradually led aside from the day's 
high teachings, and have accepted in their place the pestilent dogma 
of a false charity that levels the grave where the fallen patriot sleeps 
his last sleep, to the grade of that which covers the man who died in 
the cause of human slavery and a broken Union. 

I know that a few years ago, in order to do my part to assist in 
healing the wound that separated the North and the South, and to 
lend a hand to bridge with olive branches and cover with clasped 
hands the bloody chasm between the late contending sections of a 
common country, did advocate a joint decoration, (and under the 
same circumstances would do so to-day,) and there were many on 



8 

both sides who shared with me that opinion ; but as time passed and 
the principle was more thoroughly understood, the most of us 
realized the fallacy of such joint decoration, as the motive that 
prompts the ceremony, is conducted from a widely different 
stand-point. 

The confederates do not wish it more than we do, ihey can take no 
more pleasure in or discoxer no more argument for a joint decoration 
than old England could take in celebrating the 4th of July. I take it 
for granted that they meet annually for no other purpose than to pay 
tributes to the memory of their fallen comrades, simply in recognition 
of the gallantry displayed, and the devotion illustrated under most 
trying hardships in a cause the most of them believed to be right, 
and they would be inditferent to every sense ot justice if they did 
not; the survivors certainly do not wish or hope by their annual 
display of flowers and music, and speeches, to perpetuate and instill 
into the minds of the rising generation that the cause for which they 
fought was holy and just and right, to do so would be to o])pose the 
decision of the God of battles. 

The soldiers of both sides were the arbiters of the country's fate. 
The triumph and the surrender ended the strife — so far as the clash 
of arms could do it. Brave and true soldiers are always quick to 
rec(.)gnize the courage, the heroism of their opponents, and are ever 
as impulsive in their magnanimity as they are fearless in the discharge 
of duty. 

The soldiers of both armies of our late war were " American 
Soldiers," in warfare, each combated, respected and admired the 
j)rowess of his opponents, and the \'ictor is too magnanimous to exult 
over the vanquished, and the defeated should feel no humiliation in 
the presence of veterans worthy of their steel ; and hence, with us, 
we treasure no malice towards the fallen, and are ready to forgive the 
survivors. We ask no humiliating confession of wrong doing, but 
we do expect and demand acquiescence in the result. Rut our desire 
for peace and harmony begets in us no regret for the cause in which 
we fought — no doubt of its righteousness. We respect the sincerity 
and admire the bravery of our late enemies, but we cannot allow our 
belief in their honesty, and our admiration for their valor to beguile 
us into forgetfulness of the fact that they were in the wrong — utterly 
in the wrong. But let me speak of the lesson ice hope to instill into 
the minds of the rising generation. 



Why are we assembled here to-day ? Why do we come each year 
to this hallowed spot, to deck with flowers the graves of our fallen 
Comrades? Why did the men whose dust forms these long lines of 
mounds, fight and die ? These and similar inquiries will be made 
thousands of times this day ; not by my Comrades, not by those who 
stood shoulder to shoulder with those whose graves we deck. Our 
recollections of the Nation's dark and gloomy hour are \'ivid and 
seem but as yesterday ; %oc know the meaning of the day's ceremonies ; , 
our own experience is not so easily forgotten — the suffering of the 
camp and march, the terrific struggle of the batde, and the sorrows 
that followed the ending — the cries of the w^ounded and dying, the 
blanched upturned faces of the dead, are vi\'idly before us ; and the 
strewing of flowers to-day, though nearly twenty years ha\e passed, 
is like placing them upon fresh made graves. 

It's the litde children, and the young men and young ladies who were 
children at the beginning of the w^ar, and this uniformed company of 
handsome cadets who will ask the questions just mentioned, and, it is 
upon their minds more especially, that I wisli to im])ress the lesson of 
the hour. 

To-day. we tenderly and lovingly place flowers upon the graves of 
all our martyrs, no matter what their station or rank may have been : 
we pay honors alike to President, to General, to Colonel, to Private 
Soldier — this their common glory. They ser\ed their country well, 
and honorably died for the Flag. 

In honoring thus our dead Comrades, we strive to keep ali\e the 
hope that those who are to follow us, that those footsteps we are now- 
guiding W'ill ever be as ready to march to their country's assistance 
in her hour of emergency ; will you do it boys ? I do not purpose 
pronouncing an eulogy on war. It is generally contemplated with horror 
and considered the most direful curse which can possible be inflicted 
upon mankind, but to men of courage, men of a high sense of duty, 
war is infinitely preferable to dishonorable peace, and they would 
endure wounds and even death, rather than sufler wrong or yield to 
slavery what belongs to freedom. 

Our late troubles were an illustration of patriotism and loyalty to 
country on the one side, and on the other, of the children of rebellion 
fighting only for a fancied wrong ; ice went bravely into the battle and 
saved our country, and now my Comrades, let us act the men for our 



lO 

country, and keep it sacredly ; we faced the shot, and shell, and 
bayonet of the foe, and I sometimes think there is danger that we 
may be called again to defend this country against her enemies. I 
hope in the Pro\idence of God we may not. Our special duty now 
is to defend her against the defilement of the ballot box ; against 
financial ruin ; or the tampering of the national credit. God grant 
that every one among you, man and woman, may so act your part 
'for the right as to hold the country against any that would seek her 
ruin. The country is full of bad men — especially our large cities ; 
men whose highest ambition is to be a bully, and knock down men 
upon the street, to run a primary election for base ends, and crush 
out all honest suffrage. Society is establishing new models of 
manhood ; once it was the brains that marked the character, now it 
partakes largely of the muscle. The first element of true moral 
manhood is courage, not the stoical indifterence nor blunted sensibility 
to danger, but a moral principle and an intelligent devotion to the 
right. Then be brave men ; be patriotic men — not to get into office ; 
not to control elections ; but to look to our country's honor ; for the 
time never was when we needed more than now the action of patriotic 
men to save our country from disgrace ; we need the council and 
advice of wise and honest political leaders ; we want the ministers of 
the gospel to look to this question. When I hear the clergy say that 
we must keep politics out of the pulpit, they are right; but when I 
hear them say they must divorce patriotism and patriotic sentiments 
from religion, they are wrong ; and I charge you Reverend Gentlemen 
to look to it — let your religion and patriotism go hand in hand and 
voice both from the same pulpit. 

• A few words in relation to our X'olunteer arm\-, and U) our Order, 
the Grand Army of the Republic. 

Our Army differed from all others — of all time and of all countries. 
In nearly all the kingdoms of Europe, creating armies is the 
lundamental law of the land. A man there has no discretion, when 
he arrives at a certain age. the law makes him a soldier, and he is 
supposed to know or care for little else than toshoot at some opposing 
army, or to be shot at for ten dollars a month. With our army, the 
distinctive feature was its intelligence. In every cavalry saddle, 
behind every gun and musket, on board our men-of-war, was a 
thinking man. We discussed the issues of the war, and the results 



which would follow \ictory or defeat, with argumentative force. Our 
army \olunteered from every station of life ; the millionaire was in 
the ranks with the humblest laborer — all battling- for the right without 
the thought of the thirteen dollars per month they were to receive. 
Our army illustrated to the world that simple manhood, with no 
ancient lineage to boast, accustomed only to the ways of peace, could, 
inspired by grand and noble purposes, achieve deeds of valor 
unsurpassed in any age. The recital of which should encourage all 
who. in ages yet to come, shall dare for country and for freedom. 

History will be crowded with the feats of courage of individuals, 
but there will be few whose names will be transmitted as familiar 
words to latest generation : we will have no Citsar nor Napoleon to 
worship to the exclusion of the country whose armies he leads. The 
hero of our war, the deliverer of our country and Flag was, under God, 
none other than our people ; who, from first to last, never lost faith in 
the righteousness of their cause, or trust in its ultimate triumph. It 
is true, however, that there were those among us whom we trusted, 
and in whose ability as leaders we had an abiding faith ; and all 
history will place upon the official record, and carve upon memorial 
stones the names of Grant, and Mead, and Sherman, and Thomas, 
and Sheridan, and Burnsides, and Hooker, and Ayers, and 
Hancock, and Farragut, and Porter, and Worden, and Foot, and 
Winslow, and our own Wilsons, and Denison, and Dushane, and 
Bride, and many others ; and the leaders of the late rebellion would 
doubtless be ^'ery grateful if they could erase from the English 
vocabulary certain names which haxe already become familiar to our 
people as household words ; they stand for many a field of martial 
glory, and to erase their names would be to forget Gettysburg, and 
Vicksburg, and Appomattox, and " Sheridan only five miles away ;" 
or when will the naval historian fail to become enthusiastic as he 
recounts the glory gained by the Monitor and the Kearsarge ? But I 
weary you with the catalogue of glory. 

A word in relation to our Order, " the Grand Army of the 
Republic." It is not a political organization, destined to serve the 
ends of any political party, as has been charged. The introduction 
of politics in any form into our meetings is prohibited by the rules 
and regulations under which we work, and a member who would 
degrade the Order by using it directly or indirectly for political 



advancement is unworthy the cHstinction of the title " Comrade." and 
should he regarded a disgrace to the Order. Our only political creed 
is love of our country and its hallowed institutions : we have but 
three objects which are obligatory upon us as members of the Order, 
and they are expressed openly and a\owedly in the motto of our 
creed. 

1st. "To preserve and strengthen those kind and fraternal feelings 
which bind together the soldiers, sailors and marines, who united to 
suppress the late rebellion, and to perpetuate the memory and history 
of the dead. 

2d. " To assist such former Comrades in arms as need help and 
protection, and to extend needful aid to the widows and orphans of 
those who have fallen. 

3d. " To maintain true allegiance to the L'nited .States of America, 
based upon a paramount respect for and fidelity to the National 
Constitution and Laws, to discountenance whatever tends to weaken 
loyalty, incites tcj insurrection, treason or rebellion, or in any manner 
impairs the efficiency and permanency of our free institutions, and to 
encourage the spread of unixersal liberty, equal rights and justice to 
all men;" that is our creed. 

And just here I wish to allude t<j the matter of the indifference of 
this (iovernment to the claims of our ex-soldiers, and in doing so I 
commit no violation of the law of the Order ; this is not strictly a 
political (luestion — it is a question of duty, a question of right, a 
question of gratitude, a question of promise the Go\'ernment has not 
kept. It has not given a proportionate share of its gifts to the 
ex-soldiers. It has not given to the widow of those who fell anything 
but a pittance on which no woman can li\e. And we are justly 
indignant, when at the Capital of the Nation our maimed and crippled 
soldiers should be removed from positions of trust, which they were 
competent and fitted to fill — deprived of their only means of sujjport. 
to give place to those who fought that the Union might not stand. 

Only a few days ago 1 was at Washington in the interest of a 
Comrade who wished a clerkship in one of the Departments. In that 
connection, I mentioned the fact tt) a Comrade there, that the applicant 
was a gallant Union Soldier : with lightning speed he thrust his hand 
oxer my mouth and with bated breath bade me be careful how I 
mentioned that fact in Washington, that it was no recommendation 



T3 

to have been an Union Soldier. Comrades, we should enter our 
most solemn protest against such injustice, not against the Republican 
party, not against the Democratic party, not against any political 
party ; but against those in authority, against those who are in office, 
enjoying the liberty of a free and united country that we upheld and 
sustained. Then, Comrades, let us demand recognition, let us stand 
by each other "as the ship-wrecked mariner clings to the last plank 
when the storm and the tempest gathers around," and if we fail, we 
can at least place upon record that this Government, this proud, 
boasted land of the free is the only Nation on earth that fails to 
recognize the soldiers who risked their lives in their country's cause. 
But, as the objects of our Order become better known, the value and 
importance of it, is the more heartily appreciated. 

* " Our work concerns the sacred memory of our dead, that the 
precious inheritance of valor, sacrifice, good faith and loyalty they 
left, may be guarded by us, and enshrined in the life of our country." 

" Such work concerns our children, that they may learn that great 
lesson o{ patriotism, that the security of the state must depend upon 
the fidelity of the citizen. Such work concerns our country, that 
treason with its baneful smile and deceitful tongue, may not steal, by 
political audacity, what it could not conquer by the mailed arm of 
rebellion, that the Nation may not suffer the shame of surrendering 
in peace what it paid blood and treasure for in war." 

Then Comrades, let us be true to our Order, true to ourselves, and 
it will prosper. 

This beautiful ceremony of decoration belongs to the (irand Ami}- 
of the Republic ; let us foster and cherish it, let nothing that indicates 
the advancement and prosperity of the Order be indifferent to us. 
Its memories are too precious, its graves too hallowed, its duties too 
important. I know of no social or other organization, so far as 
generous fraternity, warm hearted charity, and patriotic loyalty are 
concerned, can glow with such brave and inspiring sunshine as the 
Grand Army of the Republic. " We are few in number," it may be 
said ; " our numbers must grow less," it may be said ; out of the 
Army and Navy that defended the honor and constitutional authority 
of the Nation, we are left as a remnant, under the call of Him whose 
Angel whispers the summons of death to every soul, day by day, our 
* From Cliaplain J. F. Lovering's Annual Report to National Encampment, 1879. 



14 



ranks are thinned. But when the last man who wore a cutlass or a 
sabre, who handled a boarding-pike or a bayonet, stands alone under 
our Flag, a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and the 
summons of God's Angel calls him, he will lilt his hand in salute, and 
reply : " Here ! at the post of duty ; " while the hosts of our 
Comrades who have been promoted will gather about him as a guard 
of honor to welcome him to their ranks as the last recruit, by which 
the Grand Army of the Republic below, becomes the Grand Army 
of the Immortals above. 

Then, Comrades, at your Post meetings and around your camp tire, 
extend each to the other a soldier's welcome ; let the experience of 
each one. Private or General, add a fagot to your camp fire; and as 
the fire burns and the living flame brightens, and the old time light 
shines in your eyes, may you and my Comrades everywhere be 
baptized into the light and life of that patriotism which loves our 
Country next to Heaven, and of that loyalty which reveres the honor 
of our Flag with a devotion second only to that which reverences the 
symbol of our Christian faith, the cross. May your Post rooms be 
the Head- Quarters of all that is brave, and pure, and true. In them 
may you cherish the memory of our dead, in them may you give 
o-enerous comradeship to the living, in them may the spirit of Fraternity, 
Charity and Loyalty so actuate every member of the Order, that it 
may ever be a recruiting station for those who shall help to form a 
guard of honor about our Country's Flag. 




15 

Baltimore, Md., Man ioth, 1880. 

HON. M. BROS! US, 

Sir : — The object of this letter is to extend to you an invitation to 
dehver the Oration, on Memorial Day, Monday, May 31st, 1880, for 
the Grand Army of the Republic of this city. 

Your qualifications for the position of Orator for that occasion 
having been so prominently brought before our Committee, I 
sincerely hope that you will grant our rec]uest. 

The members of the Grand Army here will be satisfied with the 
" Committee on Orators," if we secure a speaker from our neighboring- 
state ; one who helped to fight the battles that the Nation might live ; 
and who is also a member of that noble body, which has for its motto, 
the pledge of Fraternity, Charity and Loyalty. 

Hoping to hear from you soon, and favorably, I am Sir, 

Most respectfully yours in F". C. & L., 
J. W. C. Cuddy, M. D., 

Chairman of Cotnniittee. 



Lancaster, Pa., May i2Th, 1880. 
/ W. C. CUDD)', M. D., 

Dear Sir : — Your complimentary letter of the loth inst., conveying 
i'.n invitation from the G. A. R. of Baltimore, to deliver the Memorial 
Address on Monday, May 31st, was duly received. In answer, I beg- 
to say, that it will afford me much pleasure to visit your city on the 
day named. This pleasure is enhanced by the recollection of m\ 
experience among your people during the dark days of the rebellion. 

It is quite agreeable to my feelings to have an opportunity of 
formally presenting my acknowledgment for the tender consideration 
with which I was treated by your citizens when a wounded Soldier of 
the Republic. I therefore accept your very kind invitation, and, if 
nothing unforeseen prevents, will be with you on the occasion to 
which your letter refers. 

Yours in ¥. C. cS: L., 

M. Brosius, 




'"i«_j'"'tj'"(Ljficr 




ORATION OF HON. M. BROSIUS. 




Comrades of the Grand Army of the 

Republic, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Assembled at the close of a beautiful ceremony, that garlanded 
anew the graves of our patriotic dead, with our hearts richly freighted 
with reverence for their memory, it would seem that silence rather 
than speech would most accord with the solemnity of the hour, for 
whatever we may say of the martyred soldiers whose resting places 
are marked by the mounds that kissed your feet as you marched in 
solemn procession over them, all our speech will be outweighed by 
their speechlessness ; they are their own best orators to-day, for " being 
dead, they yet speak." Still, a custom of the country full of tenderness 
and beauty, bids us once a year assemble at these green and hallowed 
shrines, and unsealing our lips give formal utterance to sentiments 
which, in truth, are too tender to be torn away from their nestling 
place in the heart, and thrust in broken words upon the outward 
ear. 

Though keenly sensible that no poweis at our command are 
adequate to so difificult and delicate a task, yet we indulge the 
allurement of hope that, drawing inspiration from the occasion and 
the theme, we may be moved to some utterance that will serve to 
re-kindle on the altar of our hearts the fire of love for those whose 
services and death we are heje to commemorate; that as this day's 
sun shall gild anew the graves of your dead heroes, so shall the fine 
gold of their precious memory, likewise be re-gilded by the fervent 
glow of your heart's best affection. 

As you stand at this hour in the midst of your patriot dead, 
" the soul's cup-bearer " brings back to you with great vividness the 
scenes of the past when your own boys, with their hearts luminous 
with patriotic fire, marched through your streets, thronged with 
citizens and friends ; mothers, with their cheeks suffused with tears 
and their faces manded with a sweet sadness, through which, like a 
gleam of sunlight through a rift in the clouds over head, flashed 



i8 

the great courage of their souls, as they gave their sons, with a 
mother's benediction, to an imperiled country ; wives, whose 
hearts were pierced by the unutterable grief of parting with those 
whose lives had been inseparably entwined with their own, stood like 
trembling vines from which the oaks had been rudely torn, sustained 
by the unfaltering hope that a country saved would render back to 
the sweet embrace of love, the dear offerings that day laid upon her 
altar ; sisters with brows radiant with beauty, and faces luminous with 
the glow of that divine sentiment which alone could make capable of 
a deed so grand as when they bade their brothers with a " God 
speed " to the scene of their duty, to brave the perils of the battle 
and the siege ; fathers, whose hearts had been strengthened for the 
trial by the kindling fires of patriotism, stood grand and heroic as 
they consecrated with the unbidden tear, the gift of their boys to 
freedom's cause ; and the multitudes of citizens all stirred alike by 
that profound sentiment that swept the heart strings of a loyal people, 
greeted them with swaying hands and waving handkerchiefs, and 
loud huzzas, which culminated in enthusiastic shouts for the "Boys in 
Blue," that rent the air as they passed from the sight of home and 
loved ones. 

To-day, the survivors of those who departed, and those who 
witnessed that departure, are assembled to commemorate alike the 
heroism of those who gave and the valor of those who went, and to 
contribute their annual offering, to be woven into a chaplet with which 
to garland the memory of your un-returning braves — that grand 
army, bivouacked under eternal skies on the plains beyond the river. 

Nineteen years ago, the Nation's heart was beating with quick and 
mighty throes, as the sightless couriers of the air on wingS'of lightning, 
bore to waiting ears and breathless lips and flashing eyes, the story of 
a Nation's peril. To-day, that Nation bends in solenm and reverential 
awe over the graves of its martyred defenders ; nineteen years ago, 
standing on the threshold of their homes, a Nation's loyal sons were 
giving the parting salutations, and impressing upon the lips of loved 
ones, the parting kiss, to take the field in defence of endangered 
liberty and National unity. To-day, those who in the providence of 
God were permitted to survi\'e, to keep the recollection of those 
parting scenes and with the fervent heat of their patriotic love, 
transform it into a sweet and pleasant memory to be embalmed forever 
in their heart of hearts. Nineteen years ago, the Nation's hands 



19 

were busy subduing the Nation's foes; to-day, the hands ot a 
grateful people were bearing nature's sweetest floral offerings to 
beautify and adorn the graves of those by whose patriotic valor was 
achieved the Nation's new birth of freedom. 

What a contrast for mortal contemplation ? And in its vivid light 
is clearly revealed the grand and solemn significance of this day's 
commemorative exercise. The memory of the soldiers who died for 
a country in peril, is sacred to the citizens of a country saved ; and 
this annual renewal of our affection for their memory, and care for 
their resting places is the exercise of the noblest feeling that can 
animate the breast of man— the indulgence of a sentiment that finds 
a lodgment in every human heart. Honor for the resting places of 
the dead is an instinct God implanted, and co-extensive with humanity. 
All people, the barbarous no less than the polished and refined, have 
concurred in the bestowal of scrupulous care upon the resting places 
of the departed, shielding them from the perils of profanation, and 
rendering them respect and homage. 

The ancient Romans committed the guardianship of their sepulchres 
to a special deity ; we do wiser, by committing the graves of our 
dead Comrades to the tender guardianship of the Comrades who 
survive. The Egyptians embalmed their dead in fragrant spices and 
shrouded them in costly cerements ; we do better, in that we embalm 
our dead heroes in the memory of the living, and shroud them in the 
imperishable gratitude o ' a Nation saved by their valor. 

To those, who in the love of country hold communion with these 
graves, they become mute but eloquent teachers, and their sublime 
lessons challenge our attention to-day. 

We are not here to recite the sad scenes of the war, nor to open 
again the closed wounds made by the civil convulsion through which 
we were called to pass ; not here to harrow your souls with stories of 
battle and carnage. That dark period in history seemed a necessity 
in the providence of God in working out the Nation's destiny. It 
was the shadow by which the sun of American civilization marked its 
advance on the dial plate of history. It seems the established order 
that every new birth of liberty and truth must have its dark night of 
travail and pain. Formidable events put the Nation to a formidable 
alternative ; the horrors of miasma or the fury of the blast. Said 
Victor Hugo : " For every oak struck with lightning, how many 
forests rendered wholesome." The storm came, behind the visible 



20 

work was the invisible — the former barbarous, the latter sublime ; 
under a scaffolding of war was to be reared a temple of human 
freedom. 

Those who are here to-day to have their hearts re-smitten with 
sorrow for the dear departed, may find some solace in the reflection 
that all that was mortal of the loved and lost, was used by God as 
stepping- stones whereby the Nation ascended from the darkness of 
bondage and cast in the golden sunlight of freedom and justice ; they 
died in the noblest place for man to die — at the post of duty. "Near 
the beginning of the century, a great battle was fought on the planes 

of the Danube, resulting in a'victory for France. The courage of a 

private soldier contributed to~the triumph, and ever after, at the 
parades of thebattalion, the name of Latour D'Vergne was first 
called, when the oldest Sergeant stepped to the front and answered : 
"died on the field of honor.",' So in Walhalla, the paradise of 
battle-scarred warriors, when on the roll of heroes the names of our 
martyred braves are called, a chorus of dauntless spirits will reverberate 
throughout the gardens of the gods, as the highest mortal eulogy is 
pronounced : " Died on the field of duty." Never before did soldiers 
draw their swords to so holy a purpose ; for never before had war 
wrought such achievements for humanity ; there were fields on which 
Spartan valor saved "Greek intellect and art from the Persians;" — 
fields on \\hich " Roman law and polity were saved from the 
Carthagemen and the Gaul — fields on which " Charles Martel hurled 
back the Saracen hosts from the heart of Christendom," of Marston, 
Moor and Nasby when at the hands of Fairfax and Cromwell, the 
cavaliers met their doom, and of Waterloo, that saw the overthrow 
of the first Napoleon, but none of these will be so consecrated by 
after ao-es as the fields of Vicksburg, (jettysburg and Appomattox 
which fixed firm and stable forever, the foundations of freedom's 
empire. 

But not alone in this behalf have they served their generation ; their 
death was a ministry for good. From the memories that cluster 
round their graves, bright creations spring, to light up the pathway 
of the living, stimulating them to a nobler thought and a better life. 
For every loyal form that fell beneath the blood-red stroke of battle, 
a hundred virtues rise in shapes of Fraternity, Charity and Loyalty, to 
walk the world and bless it ; and every tear that sorrow drops upon 
the graves of the dead, sheds a sweet benediction upon the living ; so, 



as we, reaching down with human hands, deck the resting places o{ 
our dead ; they too, reaching down with Angel hands from celestial 
gardens, garland our lives with the flowers of a holy inspiration, 
which marshals us in the line of a higher fidelity and loftier heroism. 

The chief thought which emanates from a contemplation of the 
sacrifices of the past is the great value and inexpressible moral 
grandeur of the achievements wrought thereby. We most highly 
prize that for which we have paid a great price, and when we aggregate 
the cost in life, blood, treasures and human anguish of the enlarged 
liberty and purified national life we now enjoy, we cannot fail to be 
affected with a sense of their infinite value. God is speaking to us 
through the inspiration of this hour, teaching, that as we paid so 
dearly for a country redeemed from the barbarism of the past, for the 
introduction into our organic law of the sublime doctrine of the 
equality of all men before the law, like as they are equal before 
Heaven, and for the recognition by the Government of the universality 
and moral duty of justice, that our fidelity to these great truths shall 
be commensurate with the cost of their achievement. This is the 
lesson of the hour. Comrades; we cannot soon forget how our martyred 
heroes wrote these immortal principles in lines of blood on the sands 
beneath their feet, and in letters of lurid fire across the sky that arched 
above them. Their impress is stamped upon the country's record, 
and like the image of Phidias on the shield of Minerva, can never be 
effaced without destroying that record. If the time shall come 
when the past shall have been forgotten, the Nation's emblems 
destroyed, or shall have lost their influence on the national character, 
when we have forgotten to be virtuous and just, then God's hand 
may be lifted again in wrath ; for nothing is written more plainly on 
the tablets of time, than that nations which dally with the patience of 
deity, and attempt to stand against the inexorable, sooner or later, 
find their Damascus highways and amid the thunder and lightning of 
war are brought to conviction. 

To avert so dark and forbidding a dispensation, let us, in the 
presence of these graves renew the faith pledged to those commanding 
duties which wisdom points out and patriotism enjoins, and which 
are the chief defences of our Government ; justice to the surviving 
and honor to the memory of the dead soldiers of the Republic ; the 
maintenance of a standard of moral independence, political integrity 
and loyalty to law and order, which will guarantee a citizenship, at 



22 

once independent, incorruptible, obedient to law and loyal to the 
public weal. The first commands, that we keep sacredly the vows 
made to our dead Comrades on a hundred battle fields, to guard, 
protect and defend the widow and the orphan, their dying legacy 
to the Nation's charity ; and the memory of their supreme sacrifice, 
should evermore teach the American people, that infirmity produced 
by honorable scars in the service of the Union, is sacred ; that 
childhood, orphaned by the atoning sacrifices of the war is sacred ; 
that widowhood, caused by the grandest womanly heroism, the 
surrender of the partner of her love to her imperiled country, is 
thrice sacred. The second commands, that we strive for the loftiest 
attained standard of moral independence in the American citizen ; 
without this, though our Empire reach from the Occident to the 
Orient, we are a rope of sands. A cringing, fawning people, who 
bend the pregnant hinges of the knee at the behest of wealth, power 
or patronage, content to wear chains of the basest servitude for the 
privilege of serving their masters, are not the material out of which 
enduring Governments are reared and maintained. 

Sidney Smith said he remembered the time in England when a 
man could not aiTord to have an opinion of his own unless he was 
worth three thousand pounds a year. Such servility let us hope will 
never be a characteristic of an American citizen. Our century's 
career has born us above this reproach. The learned pate has ceased 
to duck to the golden fool ; the heraldry of the Republic is no longer 
derived from the Government die or metal, or its stamp or paper. 
The manhood of the citizen is not measured by the credits in his 
bank book, but by the deposits of probity and honor in the bank of 
his neighbor's esteem ; and whether fully realized in the past or not, 
one of the jewels which will set the crown of the Republic in the 
meridian of its splendor, will be a recognition of the moral worth of 
humanity, a standard of independence which will hold the same just 
contempt the man who pays court to another, in hope of gain or 
preferment, as him who speculates in another's gold for a similar 
purpose. " I have never defiled my conscience from fear or favor to 
my superiors," was a part of the oath e\ery Egyptian soul was 
supposed to take in the judgment hall of Osiris, before admission to 
Heaven. Fealty to his own conscience requires as much of every 
man. He who stifles his convictions of right and duty, effects the 
principles of other men which his soul abhors, that he may be kissed 



23 

by the sunbeams of popular favor, flings away for a trinket the 
priceless jewels of his individuality, drags his manhood at the feet of 
his servility, and disregards the celestial crown that hangs above his 
head, while he rakes together for himself, the straws, sticks and dust 
of the earth. Such grovelling Esaus are still among us, but they are 
the stunted products which here and there spring up by the side of 
the richer and statelier growths of manhood which have distinguished 
the Republic for the nobility of her offspring. Fidelity to conviction, 
devotion to duty, loyalty to conscience and contempt for servility are 
the qualities which have moulded the men who have honored American 
citizenship, and adorned her public service in the past, and it is a 
hope, to aid whose realization these silent graves summon the living, 
that the influence of American civilization, and the inspiration of 
American progress may produce for Columbia's future citizens, a 
race of men, who " being admirable in form, noble in reason, infinite 
in faculty, will add thereto integrity of heart. A mighty priesthood 
of truth, who will take not their souls to the public merit, but will 
stand evermore before the world as manhood incarnate. 

The third great command bids us remember, that the common 
infirmities of forms of Goverftment, in which sovereignty speaks 
through popular elections, are the absence of political integrity in the 
elector and the presence of a blind and heedless party idolatry. That 
these are the twin vices of Republics. That faction is treason, while 
observance of order and obedience to law are the beginning of 
liberty; that when intrigue and fraud begin, patriotism ends, while 
honor in politics is the essential mark of fitness for self government. 
The people are the source of authority, the fountain of power, the 
keepers of the Republic's jewels, whatever measure of virtue and 
patriotism shall exalt them in that same measure, will it feel the 
uplifting touch. If they employ themselves in partisan strife, where 
the triumph of faction rather than the prexalence of right, is the 
object of contest, it becomes as certain as the fact of omnipotence 
that the country will express and obey the baser will, and the 
Government gradually degenerate into a political despotism ; therefore 
it is, that to be false to these cardinal principles, to be dishonest in the 
affairs of Government, to proffer or accept a bribe in politics, to 
corrupt a ballot or incite to turbulence or revolution, is treason to the 
country, and to the country's dead defenders, vandalism superadded 
to treason, for it tends to disintegrate and destroy the proud fabric 



24 

which is their chief monument. No Government can long survive 
the honor, virtue and loyalty of its citizenship. These principles, 
arising from no condition, but being the common heritage of all, must 
be cherished by all. Then may I not say, my countrymen, as a fit 
utterance for this memorial occasion, when our country and her 
defenders are my theme, and when the thought is born of what all 
observed, the occasional menace of turbulent faction in our politics, 
that, whatever we may surrender, as we love our country and her 
institutions, let us hold fast to honor, virtue and loyalty, to law ; these 
are the Ibundations whereon we ha\e builded, and on which we must 
stand or perish. Renounce these principles and the earth will crumble 
beneath our feet, the skies darken over our heads, the political world 
writhe in the throes of dissolution, and all our greatness, the patient 
achievements of the golden eras of our history will become a 
recollection of the past, an added illustration of the instability of all 
human works not founded on the imperishable rock of righteousness 
and truth. 

But however the superstructure of our Government may be impaired 
by the incursions of demagogues, and the influence of prostituted, 
demoralized and partisan politics, which would count its grandest 
victory in the immolation of the country and all its hopes on the altar 
of party. Even though in the hour of turbulence, faction or revolution, 
the whirlwind of passion should sweep away the fabric we have 
reared in the blood, sweat and agony of the past, still if the foundations 
remain, if honor, virtue and loyalty survive the wreck, we may, when 
the storm is over, re-erect the Government and transmit it to 
generations yet to come. And to my Comrades let me add, that if the 
time shall come when the Republic, which we devoutly pray the God 
of Nations may preserve to be the Union soldiers temple of fame, shall 
fall a victim to maladies engendered in the bosom of our political 
system, when corruption shall have eaten away the cable that liolds us 
to the moorings of virtue, "when the nature shall totter to its fall, its 
glory extinct, the banner of its pride trampled in the dust, its 
Nationality and grandeur a moral of history, " when the unfriendly 
prophesy of a hundred years ago shall be fulfilled, and a few 
lean and half naked fishermen are dividing with owls and foxes the 
ruins of our great cities, washing their nets amidst the relics of our 
gigantic docks, and building their huts out of the capitals of our 
stately edifices, let not this work of ruin, I entreat you Comrades, 



( 



25 

with all the earnestness of my soul, be traced to those who wore the 
Union blue ; and if any one of us shall, forgetting' his duty, spurning 
the obligations of a citizen, and violating- the honor of a soldier, 
imbrue his hands in the blood of a people's slaughtered rights, let the 
memory of the devotion of our martyred braves smite him with its 
rebuking lash until he is scourged back to the fulfillment of his trust, 
or if so far abandoned to self-seeking peculation and fraud as to be 
beyond recall by the sacred memories of the past and the incentives 
to duty ever present, then let his name be stricken from the roll ot 
honor and his memory forever perish in the burning anathema of a 
people outraged by his recreancy. So may it even be a cardinal 
principle in the surviving Union soldier's creed, that whoso lays the 
hand of violence on the sacred records of a freeman's will, shall stand 
accused, with every claim to confidence, respect or honor, cancelled 
by his infamy. Thus may the soldiery, who once saved by fire and 
sword, save it yet again by the example of their fidelity to the 
institutions of their Government. From the graves of our dead, 
another inspiration springs which will honor any heart that flings wide 
its gates to receive it. Reconciliation and forgiveness are as important 
now as were heroism and valor in the hour of our country's peril ; 
and it is singularly fitting that those who bore the blunt of the battle 
should be foremost in promoting a restoration of fraternity between 
the alienated sections of our common country. As a touch of nature 
makes the whole world akin, so may the remembrance of past trial 
and pain unite our people closer together in the bonds of a patriotism 
firmer and more indestructible than ever. There is something in the 
human breast that war cannot kill, and the saddest memories of the 
past are lighted up as by a sunset glow, by the remembrance that 
during the darkest years of the war, wherever helpless suffering 
appealed to humanity, how instantly sprang to its relief the Angel in 
the human heart ; these acts of kindness, these deeds of helpfulness, 
performed with equal tenderness and promptitude, whether to relieve 
the wracking pain of a mutilated soldier in blue, or to cool the fevered 
brow of one clad in gray, were pinions on which many good souls, 
north and south, rose as on bright wings toward Heaven. I speak of 
this here and now, because sixteen years ago in this city, my heart 
was touched by this thought, while lying in your midst, a maimed and 
mutilated soldier of the Union, on a bed of ceaseless pain for weary 
months, I was the recipient of the kindest and tenderest attentions at 



26 

the hands of a number of the ladies of Baltimore, some of whom 
were not in sympathy with the flag in whose defence I became thus 
helpless. These ladies were to us Angels ministrant. Florence 
Nightingale whose shadows we would have gladly kissed as they 
swept through the wards on their mission of mercy to suffering men. 
And I avail myself of this opportunity to convey to them or their 
kindred, an expression of my grateful remembrance of their kind 
attention, thus discharging in the only way in my power an obligation 
which, through all these intervening years has lain near to my heart. 
These ministrations upon the sick and wounded, north and south, 
exhibited a beautiful side of our life ; they attested humanity in the 
midst of the fiery passions, kindled by the torch of rebellion, showing 
that above the Union, above the Confederacy, above all questions of 
time and sense, was the boundless compassion of the human soul, 
illuminating with the light ot di\ine action? the dark precipice of 
civil war. 

The carnival of blood ended long ago. The fields that were 
crimsoned with human gore, and filled with the bodies of the slain, 
yield now their bountiful harvest to the peaceful sickle. The streams 
that ran red and glimmered in the sun, roll now their crystal waters 
unstained to the sea. Wild flowers whose enameled cups were filled 
high with human blood, have drooped, perished and are succeeded 
by brighter growths whose perfumed goblets are filled with peaceful 
dew. The silvery moon has shed her soft radiance on the fields of 
strife — the stars have shot down their eternal rays upon them and the 
winds from every quarter of the earth have swept over them, until every 
trace of battles and carnage is swept away. Nature, as if to set a 
pattern for men, who suffers the embers of hate still to smoulder in 
his bosom has recovered her serenity, and smiles upon , the guilty 
battle fields the same as when they were innocent of blood. To 
follow 'where nature leads is not to go astray. Over the green earth, 
from which they were frightened by the smoke and tumult of battle, 
the feathered songsters now without a note of discord warble their 
sweet praises to a God of peace. So in the hearts once tumultuous 
with wars, stormy passions, now let the bird of peace and love sing 
her sweet songs in tuneful glee. From the streams in whose red and 
turbid waters the battle steeds cooled their foaming flanks, now 
sturdy cattle from peaceful hill sides draw their cooling draughts 
undisturbed. While the hand of revolt was raised, the waters of 



a people's clemency were dried up by treasons burning breath, but 
now let the resentments of the past be hurried in the graves of the 
past, while the erring and vanquished are welcomed with fraternal 
hands to deep draughts at the fountain of forgiveness flowing as a 
perennial spring from the great heart of the north. When the 
assassin's dagger was at the nations heart, the great right hand of a 
loyal people guided the thunder bolts of (iod's justice. But now that 
peace blesses the land with her beneficent reign, let that same right 
hand, Christ like, dispense to our penitent brothers, the divine charities 
fresh plucked from the sermon on the mount. Thus may a true unity 
of faith be restored in all hearts that are now loyal, and the people 
north and south, rising above the mists of earth, above the smoke of 
battle — above the clouds of resentment and hate, into the golden 
sunlight of their better natures, will find a common ground of 
reconciliation in the reflection that the dark and stormy path of war 
was the way of light to a redeemed and regenerated Republic. 

These are the lessons which leap from the graves of the dead to 
the ears of the living to day. Let us heed their admonition as a 
fresh inspiration from the bosom of (iod. Let the remembrance of 
the dead be a kind monitor within to lead us to a sense of our 
obligation, and to a renewal of our devotion to those everlasting 
principles which make for truth and peace. Then the ever blessed 
memory of our martyred braves will be to Columbia a " pillar of 
cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night" — rich heritage of glory 
whose lustre is fadeless, and whose life is perennial as the stars. 

And now as we bid adieu to our theme, and to the tranquil and 
sequestered haunts of our resting defenders, having discharged a 
sacred duty to them — having renewed our faith in the efficacy of their 
sacrifices for the nation's redemption, and re-dedicated ourselves to 
the services of the principles for which they gave the last full measure 
of their devotion, v/e can leave the contemplation of their graves with 
reflection that, evermore "green giass will cover them, blue skies 
bend over them, sweet birds sing near them, the place will be hallowed 
grounds, but greener than the grass, fairer than the skies, sweeter 
than the birds, more hallowed than the graves themselves, will be the 
memory of our martyred dead, enshrined with sui>reme sacredness in 
our hearts of hearts." 



NATIONAL STAFF, G. A. R. 



AIDS-DE-CAMP. 
T. F. Lanc;, Wilson Post i, JOHN W. Worth, Dushane Post 3, 

John W. Horn, Burns Post 13. 
A. (i. ALFORD, Custer Post 6, - Asst Inspector General. 



DEPARTMENT OF MARYLAND. 

— OFFICERS 1880. — 

Wm. E. W. Ross, Post i , - - Department Commander. 

Thos. S. Norwood, Post 3, - - Senior Vice Commander. 

James Cress, Post 8, - - Junior Vice Commander. 

A. A. White, Post 3, - - - - Medical Director. 

Rev. E. K. Miller, Post 9, - - - Clictplain. 

Council 0/ Administration : 

Theo. W. Dew, Post i, L. M. Zimmerman, Post 2, 

F. T. Murray, Post 3, Wm. H. Sprigg, Post 7, 

John T. Kakr, Post S. 



— official staff, 1880. — 
John H. Suter, Post i, - - Ass t Adjutant General. 

Geo. p. Mott, Post i, - - AssI Quartermaster General. 

R. N. Bowerman, Post 3. - - - - Inspector. 

Assistant Inspectors : 

Wm. H. Searlf.s, Post i, Theo. A. Worrall, Post g. 

Harm AN White, Post 5. 

J. J. Butler, Post 6, - - - Judge Advocate. 

Isaac D. Davis, Post 10, - - ChieJ Mustering Officer. 



ROSTER OF POSTS, DEPARTMENT OF MARYLAND. G. 


A. R. 


Nninc of Post. 


I 


Location. 


CoDitimndcr. 


Name of Post. 


Wilson, 


Cor. Second and Holliday, Baltimore, 


Graham Dukehart, 


Mondays. 


Reynolds, 


7. 


Frederick City, 


G. W. Glessner, 


I.St Monday. 


Dushane, 


^ 


Cor. Frederick and P'avettc, lialtimore, 


1. T. Newnan, 


Wednesdays. 


Reno, 


4 


Hagerstown, 


NV. W. Walker, 


Saturdays. 


Tyler, 


S 


Cumberland, 


Henry J. lohnson. 




Custer, 


6 


Baltimore and Light, Baltimore, 


David R. Knull, 


2d & 4 th Tues. 


Lincoln, 


7 


Douglas Institute, Baltimore, 


Wm. H. Sheppard, 


Tuesdays. 


Denison, 


8 


Woodherrv, 


James Cress, 
K. H. Cameron, 


2d & 4th Wed. 


Wingate, 


q 


Northeast, 


Wednesdays, 
ist &3d Thurs. 


Post 10, 


10 


Elkton, 


John E. Wilson, 


Harry Howard, 


,, 


Cor. McHenry and Sterrett, Baltimore, 


Chas. R. Coleman, 


Thursdays. 


Willman, 


I? 


Mechanicstown, 


John R. Rouzer, 


Each month. 


Uurns, 


i^ 


Westminster. 


Wm. A. McKellip, 
J. B. Islcr, 


Each month. 


LeCompte, 


14 


Preston, 


Saturdays, 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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